And stepping into the middle of the hall she made a sign to the musicians to play a country-dance.

But when the first measures floated through the air, the company, as if by unanimous consent, hastened toward the door.

One might have supposed the chateau on fire—­the guests did not withdraw, they actually fled.

An hour before, the Marquis de Courtornieu and the Duc de Sairmeuse had been overwhelmed with the most obsequious homage and adulation.

But now there was not one in that assembly daring enough to take them openly by the hand.

Just when they believed themselves all-powerful they were rudely precipitated from their lordly eminence.  Disgrace and perhaps punishment were to be their portion.

Heroic to the last, the bride endeavored to stay the tide of retreating guests.

Stationing herself near the door, with her most bewitching smile upon her lips, Madame Blanche spared neither flattering words nor entreaties in her efforts to reassure the deserters.

Vain attempt!  Useless sacrifice!  Many ladies were not sorry of an opportunity to repay the young Marquise de Sairmeuse for the disdain and the caustic words of Blanche de Courtornieu.

Soon all the guests, who had so eagerly presented themselves that morning, had disappeared, and there remained only one old gentleman who, on account of his gout, had deemed it prudent not to mingle with the crowd.

He bowed in passing before the young marquise, and blushing at this insult to a woman, he departed as the others had done.

Blanche was now alone.  There was no longer any necessity for constraint.  There were no more curious witnesses to enjoy her sufferings and to make comment upon them.  With a furious gesture she tore her bridal veil and the wreath of orange flowers from her head, and trampled them under foot.

A servant was passing through the hall; she stopped him.

“Extinguish the lights everywhere!” she ordered, with an angry stamp of her foot as if she had been in her own father’s house, and not at Sairmeuse.

He obeyed her, and then, with flashing eyes and dishevelled hair, she hastened to the little salon in which the denouement had taken place.

A crowd of servants surrounded the marquis, who was lying like one stricken with apoplexy.

“All the blood in his body has flown to his head,” remarked the duke, with a shrug of his shoulders.

For the duke was furious with his former friends.

He scarcely knew with whom he was most angry, Martial or the Marquis de
Courtornieu.

Martial, by this public confession, had certainly imperilled, if he had not ruined, their political future.

But, on the other hand, had not the Marquis de Courtornieu represented a Sairmeuse as being guilty of an act of treason revolting to any honorable heart?

Buried in a large arm-chair, he sat watching, with contracted brows, the movements of the servants, when his daughter-in-law entered the room.